The Christian worldview offers the only sustainable foundation for human dignity. The Christian truth claim, grounded in the Bible, claims that human dignity is ontological (based merely in the human being’s existence) rather than functional. According to this worldview, every single human being is equally created in the image of God. The other creatures are wondrous and each reveals the glory of God in its own way, but no other creature is created in the image of God. To be human is to be a bearer of God’s image. Thus, every single human being possesses full human dignity.

The concept of human rights emerged from the Christian worldview. Any attempt to ground human rights in a secular concept of human uniqueness is, as we have seen, doomed to failure or fatal weakness. Current debates about animal rights and even plant rights are symptoms of a dangerous intellectual disease. The denial of basic human rights to some human beings is tragic evidence that the disease is spreading.

Christians bear a special responsibility to defend human dignity for every human being at every stage of development, and to contend for human rights on the basis of our common humanity. Christians ground human dignity in the Bible and in the great narrative of the Christian story. That great narrative tells us that humans are the only beings created in the image of God; the only creature who willfully sinned against the Creator, and the only beings for whom Christ died as Savior. That narrative, and that alone, can sustain human dignity.

Psalm 139:14, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well”